Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / SELECTIVE MUTISM Do You Have it? [3 Things YOU NEED to KNOW!]

Transcript

SELECTIVE MUTISM Do You Have it? [3 Things YOU NEED to KNOW!] · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

• 0:00
  Hey guys, in this podcast. I'm talking about selective
• 0:03
  mutism how to spot it. What's it all about and
• 0:05
  everything. So I hope you enjoy this and
• 0:07
  remember support this podcast at patreon.com forward slash that I
• 0:10
  squealed. Okay, so selective mutism.
• 0:13
  Let's talk about what it is. So selective mutism is like the
• 0:17
  inability to socially communicate in social situations
• 0:23
  where you should be expected to speak.
• 0:26
  For example, if you're at like a birthday party, Or you're in a
• 0:30
  group in school, then people want you to join in in the
• 0:34
  conversation or be part of a social group that are you know,
• 0:39
  putting stories back and forth and putting their input in now
• 0:42
  selective mutism is where you will have an inability to do
• 0:46
  that for a number of reasons, you know, there may be a hundred
• 0:48
  causes, but the fact of the matter is that you are able to
• 0:51
  contribute towards that social situation at that time.
• 0:54
  It's also characterized by the fact that it's not caused by a
• 0:58
  language barrier. So It's not you know, it's not
• 1:00
  that somebody is speaking in Portuguese.
• 1:02
  And then you're speaking in English and then you can't join
• 1:04
  in the conversation. It is always to do with the fact
• 1:07
  that you have the inability to talk when you're in a social
• 1:12
  situation. It's not to do with language and
• 1:15
  you should never be confused with the language barrier issue
• 1:17
  and it also isn't to do with any like profound disability where
• 1:19
  you won't be able to talk physically or mentally doesn't
• 1:23
  you know, it's nothing to do with that.
• 1:24
  It's to do with a deep rooted social anxiety issue.
• 1:28
  So so the origins of it for manifesting in the fact that
• 1:32
  you're unable to speak in a party.
• 1:34
  So for instance Let me Give an example touching on my personal
• 1:37
  experience in my life. This is an example of how it is
• 1:40
  for me when I am at home or when I'm with like, you know, my best
• 1:45
  friend and my cousin like we could talk for hours about music
• 1:47
  and UFOs and like just cool crazy stuff and I love talking
• 1:51
  about the things I'm really interested in but then when I go
• 1:54
  to my girlfriend's parents house for where her mom Lives and they
• 1:59
  have like parties for people's birthdays and stuff.
• 2:02
  We're all like sitting about and everyone's like having a huge
• 2:04
  discussion and debate and there's about eight people
• 2:06
  learn. So there's like eight people
• 2:08
  versus just like to people like me and another person and I just
• 2:11
  kind of frees up I can't talk. I don't know it almost like
• 2:16
  drains me. It kind of zaps the how it like
• 2:18
  the way it feels like kind of just zaps out.
• 2:19
  I mean, I zapped the energy to actually talk to anybody and I'm
• 2:23
  just unable to do that and this isn't the first time experience
• 2:26
  this I experienced this when I was in college when Were
• 2:29
  Technical College here in the UK which is still high school in
• 2:32
  America age and I was around other peers who were kind of
• 2:36
  like had ADHD and hyperactive as me but by being around more than
• 2:40
  two or three of them. I became like unable to speak in
• 2:44
  certain situations and I just felt drained like it was just
• 2:48
  just it physically drained me now school is one of the most
• 2:53
  common places that you're gonna be able to spot this when you're
• 2:55
  especially a child starts school.
• 2:57
  It's thrusting them into a social situation.
• 2:59
  That they have never been in before and this is very
• 3:02
  interesting because this brings across a situation that presents
• 3:06
  itself very social and if you've never been a social person
• 3:09
  before there's going to be something that you like.
• 3:10
  Oh my goodness, what on Earth is going on here and it could cause
• 3:13
  social anxiety to you know, show itself and then also selective
• 3:18
  mutism. So that's how you can categorize
• 3:20
  it at but it also can present itself in working environment is
• 3:23
  not to say it just children have it.
• 3:24
  Let's be very clear here. It's not just a child thing.
• 3:26
  It could be an older generational thing it Could be
• 3:29
  something that develops later on in life when you develop a
• 3:32
  anxiety or a phobia. And again, this comes from the
• 3:35
  fact that it has a deep-rooted issue.
• 3:38
  The issue is caused by a an intense phobia of fear social
• 3:43
  anxiety or social interaction, one of the interesting things as
• 3:46
  well is that if you have it as a child a lot of people grow out
• 3:49
  of having it which is quite interesting.
• 3:50
  I didn't really think about this before but people without it,
• 3:53
  you know selective mutism as a kid as I grow older the kind of
• 3:57
  rock out of it a little bit which is very Interesting and
• 3:59
  fascinating. It also is very notable when it
• 4:03
  interferes. Okay, so we know that like if
• 4:06
  you're having issues in Social circumstances and social
• 4:09
  situations, then it's going to be present like selective mutism
• 4:13
  is going to be present in those social situations.
• 4:16
  Now another way that it can be present or you can notice it is
• 4:19
  that interrupts educational functions of vocational
• 4:22
  functions and what this means. Is that like if you're in school
• 4:26
  or in work and you want to communicate to your peers or
• 4:29
  Your teacher or your boss and you have a huge issue about
• 4:32
  doing that then this it's going to interfere with that and it's
• 4:34
  going to stop you communicating with those people and it's going
• 4:37
  to cause upset and this is going to disrupt your life in a
• 4:40
  certain fashion. This is very very interesting
• 4:42
  because this is one of the the diagnostic criteria which will
• 4:45
  going to summary of in a few minutes again, but this is one
• 4:47
  of those criteria and another way that you can spot the fact
• 4:50
  that you know, it's selective mutism or not.
• 4:53
  Something else is that its present for at least a month or
• 4:56
  more now all of these criteria and standards.
• 4:59
  Taken from the DSM-5 which is the diagnostic criteria for
• 5:02
  mental health and your developmental issues today's day
• 5:05
  and age. This is how psychiatrist and
• 5:08
  neurologist and stuff diagnose certain conditions in people
• 5:10
  having the presence of selective mutism longer than one month
• 5:15
  would rule out any ability for it to be classed as just shyness
• 5:19
  because look people can be shy and you can like get overly
• 5:22
  shaira stuff. But if you're completely shy,
• 5:24
  you know, if you're just shy and you're completely sure I then
• 5:26
  shyness and kind of go away and you get to warm up to people but
• 5:28
  selective. Mutism definitely need to
• 5:30
  therapy or a time of longer than one month to overcome extreme.
• 5:34
  This kind of will go after him and that's the idea of having
• 5:37
  that so the diagnostic criteria for Selective mutism is this and
• 5:40
  I'll just read these out again just so we have a summary here.
• 5:42
  So first one is failure to talk in social situations where
• 5:45
  expected that's number one number two is interrupt to the
• 5:48
  educational session vocational functions of your daily life.
• 5:52
  So again, you know, you find it hard to say.
• 5:54
  Oh, I need help with my work or I need help with this project in
• 5:57
  school or need to speak to a teacher about Race blah blah
• 5:59
  blah it will you know show itself in that fact that you
• 6:03
  can't do that. You can't communicate to the
• 6:04
  people because you have that selective mutism your mute for
• 6:07
  that period of time and then the number three is it present for
• 6:11
  longer than one month? Like I said, if you're if it's
• 6:13
  if it's longer than one month, it's becoming an issue.
• 6:15
  It's not just shyness. It's an issue.
• 6:17
  So if you can see those three things in order and those who
• 6:20
  are present in order, then it's definitely selective mutism and
• 6:23
  not something else now. I just wanted to talk a little
• 6:25
  bit about selective mutism treatment.
• 6:28
  So, you know, It is case. Okay, I've got selective mutism
• 6:31
  and are you know, someone's got selective mutism or you're
• 6:34
  watching this video and you already have selective mutism or
• 6:36
  your kid has it or whatever and you want to know what treatments
• 6:38
  available so there's a bunch of different like treatments
• 6:40
  available and therapies available for Selective mutism.
• 6:43
  And I've just like pulled three up here that I've known that
• 6:46
  I've been thought about the internet and the first one is s
• 6:49
  cat which is a social communication anxiety treatment,
• 6:52
  which is kind of like the gold standard.
• 6:53
  I mean think about it this specifically Target social
• 6:56
  anxiety and as we know from earlier on The video selective
• 7:00
  mutism is a direct result of having social anxiety and it
• 7:04
  becoming an intense fear or phobia of talking in social
• 7:06
  situations. So that would be that's kind of
• 7:08
  the gold standard. That's the one everyone says
• 7:10
  like that. That's the one that you should
• 7:11
  be taking to do that which I find very very interesting.
• 7:14
  Okay. So the second Selective mutism
• 7:18
  Therapy, I'll talk about here now is psychodynamic therapy and
• 7:21
  this is basically when it's in children, it's like play therapy
• 7:25
  kids can use play to communicate in a Certain way rather than
• 7:29
  like it's very clinical if you sit down and ask me a question
• 7:32
  directly, they're going to be like, oh, can you do this for me
• 7:35
  or how do you feel about that? And you may just like tense up
• 7:37
  and you may freeze and you may not be able to talk again
• 7:39
  selective mutism kicks in and kicks you in the butt but if you
• 7:43
  are using this at Dynamic the therapy the psychodynamic
• 7:46
  therapy, it's using play to get kids to then communicate certain
• 7:49
  things so that they're playing a character and then they're the
• 7:52
  playing along and they can then communicate what they want to
• 7:55
  somebody and this will help in turn have them overcome.
• 7:59
  Not fear that anxiety that barrier that's stopping them top
• 8:02
  talking in social situations. Now the third one I've picked up
• 8:05
  here as treatment for Selective mutism is behavioral therapy.
• 8:09
  And this is quite interesting. So behavioral therapy is the the
• 8:13
  idea to reward positive behavior.
• 8:15
  That's basically the bear principle of it.
• 8:16
  But the idea is that if you're if you're able to kind of like
• 8:20
  push through and try and talk a little bit in situations where
• 8:22
  you may be unable to talk in those situations like so say
• 8:26
  you're I don't know in a party or you go With your parents to
• 8:29
  see a group of family members and you have the inability to
• 8:32
  talk but then you kind of fall through a little bit of like
• 8:35
  nodding and gesturing and maybe saying yes or no, then this
• 8:38
  behavior is rewarded. If you reward yourself after
• 8:41
  that behavior, then it will help train your brain to kind of be
• 8:46
  more open to those situations. It's kind of like it's a very
• 8:49
  old kind of trick but it definitely works.
• 8:51
  I find this. This is very good.
• 8:52
  I mean positive reinforcement for Behavior.
• 8:55
  It is always a good thing, but be careful of the therapy that
• 8:57
  you choose make sure that you choose the right one.
• 8:59
  And that you know, I'm not telling you to take any of these
• 9:01
  I'm saying that you know go and look at them.
• 9:02
  If you wanting to get therapy Force, you know selective mutism
• 9:06
  the choices down to you to check that out.
• 9:07
  Okay, so I want to talk a little bit in this part of the video
• 9:10
  about my how do I know if I have selective mutism, right?
• 9:13
  So the interesting thing for me was that I didn't realize I was
• 9:16
  presenting selective mutism until somebody said it to me.
• 9:19
  I was doing a video with a girl called Charles Davis who has
• 9:22
  autism and we were doing a collaboration video together and
• 9:25
  it was all about, you know autism in girls know she was
• 9:27
  talking about selective mutism and When we were talking about
• 9:30
  it, it kind of made me think and reflect.
• 9:32
  Oh my goodness. That's what I do.
• 9:33
  And that's the things. I just saw no one's ever said to
• 9:35
  me like, oh you got a selective mutism because of this but when
• 9:37
  you reflect on it you go. Oh my goodness.
• 9:39
  That's exactly what it is. So now that my occupational
• 9:42
  therapist and my therapist like, oh yeah that is selective
• 9:44
  mutism. But nobody ever figure to point
• 9:47
  it out to me in the first place. So I found that interesting.
• 9:49
  So I've written three things that it's a like, you know, how
• 9:54
  you can identify selective mutism.
• 9:55
  Okay. So number one is selective
• 9:56
  mutism is part of social anxiety.
• 9:59
  Now if you are suffering from social anxiety Then There is a
• 10:03
  huge possibility that you could also suffer from selective
• 10:07
  mutism. Okay.
• 10:08
  It's going to present itself somewhere though because I feel
• 10:11
  like it becomes part and parcel with social anxiety and I do
• 10:14
  believe that anybody who has social anxiety will display some
• 10:19
  form of selective mutism. And this will be present within
• 10:22
  them as a person. Okay.
• 10:23
  So number two is selective mutism and autism So for anybody
• 10:27
  who doesn't know autism is a neurological condition that
• 10:31
  impacts the social and communicative part of a person's
• 10:35
  brain and how they interact with the world around them socially
• 10:39
  and communicatively now people with an Autism Spectrum
• 10:43
  condition obviously have social anxiety and anxiety comorbid lie
• 10:47
  in there as well as OCD and dyslexia and bipolar disorder
• 10:52
  depression stress all these things comorbid with an Autism
• 10:55
  Spectrum condition, but one of the most interesting things is
• 10:58
  that Active mutism is commonly associated with an Autism
• 11:02
  Spectrum condition. So if you already have an Autism
• 11:05
  Spectrum condition and you're experiencing things, like I
• 11:07
  said, like you go to a family gathering or a party and you're
• 11:09
  not able to join in in the conversation, but if not that
• 11:12
  lack of trying or not wanting to you just oh, I can't join in
• 11:15
  this conversation and I'm unable to speak and it could be down to
• 11:17
  the fact that you have a selective mutism as part of your
• 11:21
  autism condition. Okay.
• 11:23
  So number three is selective mutism symptoms.
• 11:26
  Okay, so some of the symptoms of selective mutism algae.
• 11:29
  Read these out here, which I've kind of made notes for is overly
• 11:32
  anxious when talking as social situations that you do not want
• 11:35
  to talk. Like it's it's like you're not
• 11:38
  comfortable talking. You have a fear of talking when
• 11:40
  you're around those people and you it could be a you know, the
• 11:44
  cause of it is is could be a number of things but the fact of
• 11:49
  the matter is that your you can't talk because you have a
• 11:51
  fear talking front of those people.
• 11:52
  That's a huge sometimes like Number One symptom.
• 11:54
  Okay. The second one is the inability
• 11:57
  to talk in a social situation. Um and you kind of retreat back
• 12:00
  into yourself. So as you'd be like talking blah
• 12:03
  blah blah with your friend when you're you know, experiencing
• 12:06
  selective mutism. You kind of another symptom is
• 12:08
  going back into yourself and kind of like closing up a bit
• 12:11
  and not wanting to talk and not wanting to have that discussion
• 12:14
  out because it's something that is just I know you lose all the
• 12:18
  energy you lose all the ability to do that and it just happens.
• 12:21
  You have the inability to talk in social situations.
• 12:24
  Now, I'm a Staff have definitely experienced all of Of these over
• 12:30
  my time of just looking back and highlight them to myself what's
• 12:33
  you know social anxiety and do I have that and do does that come
• 12:37
  with Selective mutism in? Yeah.
• 12:38
  I've actually experienced those.